Technological Field
The present invention relates to an image forming system.
Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, an image forming system including a plurality of image forming apparatuses (e.g., two image forming apparatuses) tandem-connected in series, has been known. In the image forming system, one image forming apparatus forms a predetermined image on one face of paper and the other image forming apparatus forms a predetermined image on the other face of the paper so that high-speed printing processing is achieved.
JP 2012-141389 A describes an image forming system in which a first image forming apparatus and a second image forming apparatus each form a predetermined image on a region on the same face of paper, the two image forming apparatuses being coupled in series in the image forming system. With this arrangement, for example, in a case where printing is performed in a 2-in-1 format, the two image forming apparatuses form the images, being allocated to two regions on the same face of paper, and thus the acceleration of processing time can be achieved.
Here, in a case where a large number of images each including the same basic image and a different name and address, are printed as in typical direct mail, the size of a file may be small for only the names and the addresses, but the size of a file may increase depending on the basic image illustrating, for example, a commodity.
However, in a case where, for example, two images are allocated to two image forming apparatuses so that printing jobs are performed, without consideration of the sizes of image files, as in the conventional image forming systems described above, the following problems occur. For example, in a case where an image file having data large in size is allocated to the image forming apparatus on the upstream side, a problem occurs that performing expansion processing of the image requires time and conveying control of paper becomes intricate. With the problem, another problem occurs that the productivity in the printing degrades.